I may be temporarily gardenless but . . .

For the first time in 22 years I am not spending spring weekends both coaxing and at the same time taming a garden from its winter state. It is a strange sensation to be without even a windowsill of outdoor plant space. Dare I say it, for the moment it makes me feel rootless!

Here is my old garden last year on the 26th April 2016 . . .

And, here is my last photo of the garden taken on 27 February 2017 before the pots were loaded onto the lorry.

So it is thank goodness for the odd bunch of seasonal flowers.

For me certain colour combinations are simply crying out to be tweaked and developed into some form of textile work . . .

Here, above and below, are a couple of ways I have manipulated the images to emphasise the colours and the shapes in preparation for possibly a silk scarf or a hand hooked cushion cover.

After working on these photos saving some and deleting others, I pondered my gardenless state. Reminiscing I scrolled back through hundreds of old photos featuring the gone garden when I came upon this strange picture. If you were wondering just how odd some people can get here’s proof. No, it wasn’t April Fool’s Day either when I concocted this visual yarn!

Yes, you are right it is a strange place to be. I am finding it difficult to generate new ideas, I suppose retrenchment into the familiar is the easy option to take. It has really stopped me in my tracks and made me truly appreciate the strength and resilience of all the millions of refugees worldwide forced into precarious living arrangements through no choice of their own. According to the UNHCR in 2015 that was 65.3 million people around the world have been forced from home.

It’s hard to comprehend their situation, isn’t it? It’s easy to think of them as the dispossessed who had little anyway – not that this would have been any better – but many are leaving homes they’d lived in for years, jobs they’d trained for and liked and which offered security, relationships that mattered. All this, abandoned. And the Tories are thinking of cutting the Aid budget …..

It’s also that any future that they had hoped for has been swiped away and they are clinging on to surviving and expected to generate some new future for themselves and family, in a new place, with often a new language and sometimes an overwhelmingly different culture. Mmm, I think some of those Tories should experience trying to live like a refugee for a few months and see how they survive, somewhere where nobody speaks English and somewhere where they don’t have access to their personal, financial cushions.

Thank you. I have to say that now it is looking like a move down to Suffolk, but into more temporary accommodation. What’s that expression ‘A change is as good as a rest’ – mmm, not sure about that right now.

Ah transitions – I do know in my heart of hearts that this is the right solution to a number of practical issues, but it is nevertheless a stressful time. As you rightly comment, we do, don’t we, adapt and get on with it!

I always admire the way you arrange flowers in a vase as if they have been casually placed together and yet make such a visual and colourful impact. There is always a moodiness to the photos that I love, and that last one gave me a chuckle. I can empathise that you feel rootless (hahaha), but when you do find a location, you will soon make it home. Even if it is a temporary one.

Thanks for all those positive remarks. All very grey today and they are forecasting an unseasonal drop in temperatures. I don’t know where my brain was when I packed most of my clothes for storage. I thought I’d got every change of English weather covered, but no. Living out of boxes and suitcases is very trying and I am really making an effort to find a funny side to all of this, but amusing moments are thin on the ground at the mo.

I’ll stay alert for any relevant funny joke to cheer you up. I agree with you about living out of suitcases. Some of my family are off to Italy tomorrow for six weeks and I was reminding my sister not to pack too much, because she’ll be forever going through her case for the “right” thing.

I used to be great at it. Out of practice now. And when we go on the road trips, the temptation to put in one more thing, just because we have the car, is very great. Then everything clogs up the boot space, and has to be re-washed and ironed on our return.

I’m reasonable. Got the luggage for the four month European trip down to around seven pounds plus a backpack. But I don’t handle the shoes and toiletries part as well as I used to. And the road trips are a nightmare because you always throw in the “just in case” stuff that you never really need.

Thank you and yes, visiting public open spaces will be top of my list when I move to the next place. Hopefully, I will get a chance to photograph the local marina area and perhaps even get down to the beach and coast more often. No doubt I will post about it all during the course of the next few months and find some visual inspiration too.